Nativity scenes spark protest
Some troops at Guantanamo Bay want the U.S. Navy to remove Nativity scenes and Christmas decorations from two base dining facilities, saying they improperly promote Christianity over other faiths, an organization that advocates for religious freedom in the military said Wednesday.
A group of 18 service members from several faiths contacted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation for help removing the Nativity scenes and decorations because they figured they would be ignored and feared retribution, said Mikey Weinstein, the president of the organization.
Eleven of the troops who complained are Protestant and Catholic and the rest are Muslim, Jewish, agnostic or atheist, Weinstein said.
A base spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
— Associated Press
Many detainees at Guantanamo Bay may be closer to heading home under a bipartisan deal reached in Congress that gives President Barack Obama a rare victory in his fight to close the prison for terror suspects.
The deal would lift the most rigid restrictions Congress previously imposed on detainee transfers overseas and is part of a broad compromise defense bill awaiting final passage in the Senate this week. The House approved the measure last Thursday.
It’s the first time since Obama came to office promising to close Guantanamo that Congress is moving to ease restrictions instead of strengthen them. And it could signal changing political views of the prison for terrorism suspects now that the war in Afghanistan is winding down.
Obama’s achievement was somewhat a surprise, after the Republican-controlled House earlier this year voted overwhelmingly to make it harder to transfer detainees. But the deal to move in the opposite direction passed with hardly any opposition and little attention.
But even with the deal, Obama still faces big obstacles to closing Guantanamo. Congress has effectively blocked him from doing so for his first five years in office, and he faces declining clout in his final three.
Congressional proponents of keeping Guantanamo open say they felt they had to allow for transfers to other countries to maintain a more important priority — a ban on detainees from coming into the United States.
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who worked on the compromise as the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he’ll continue to fight to keep Guantanamo open even as some colleagues are softening their position. “There’s no place else you can house these terrorists,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday, adding some former detainees have re-engaged in terrorist activity.
“I look at this and I wonder why people don’t want it,” Inhofe said. “But the president doesn’t and he’s going to keep trying (to close it). And this bill stops him from doing it.”
Obama renewed his commitment to closure this spring when detainees went on a hunger strike to protest indefinite confinement without charge, now going on for 12 years. Obama responded by vowing to make the case anew to Congress that the prison hurts the United States and appointing envoys at the State and Defense Departments to work toward closure.
“Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” Obama said. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”
Top administration officials, including Obama counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco and State Department envoy Clifford Sloan, made a quiet yet effective lobbying push to convince members to ease restrictions. They pointed out the annual cost of operating Guantanamo has reached more than $2 million per prisoner while other terrorism suspects are kept in U.S prisons at a small fraction of the price.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin championed the cause and predicts the resulting compromise could have a dramatic impact on the detainee population.
“About half of the detainees would be detainees that could be transferred to their third-world countries from which they come,” Levin told reporters. “About half of the detainees would remain in Guantanamo because of the prohibition on transferring them to the United States for detention and for trial.”
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